UpStarts: Martha Read Architects

Founded in 2012 by former literature student and obituary writer Martha Read, UK-based Martha Read Architects is the distillation of multiple cultural sensitivities, honed over decades of teaching, writing, and working globally.

UpStarts is a series of features on the foundations of contemporary practice. It will have a global reach in which practices from Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond will be asked to address the work behind getting the work, and the effect of cultural contexts. The focus will be on how a practice is initiated and maintained. In many ways, the critical years of a fledgling design partnership is within the initial five years, after the haze and daze of getting it off the ground. UpStarts surveys the first years of practice as a tool for tracking the tactics of the rapidly evolving methods for sustaining a practice.

The firm's architectural projects range from conservative London townhouse additions to wild, personality-infused global competition entries. As UpStarts go, Martha Read Architects is a rare blend of experience and multi-faceted curiosity. As a student at Oxford, she wrote her thesis on the uses of space in the novels of Boris Vian before segueing into TV news. Finding broadcasting unsatisfactory, she was inspired to study architecture as a 23-year old "mature student" after reading an essay by her art-critic grandfather on how architecture emerged from sculpture. Her professional life quickly became a scenic tour through London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and parts in between. She worked in the offices of Eric Owen Moss, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid before launching her own firm by sending out a new practice announcement email to everyone she knew. Her first clients were her cousin and his wife who wanted to extend the kitchen of their North London home.

The one commonality between all her projects is Martha's deft cultural sensitivity. Whether designing within the tight constraints of a council-approved site or the relative unknowns of a competition, her enormous breadth of cultural experience allows her to create the ideal design for each locale. Her marina for Porto Montenegro sashays with a vibrant asymmetry, while the proposed design for Richmond: Retreat Road serves up the same energy in a cooler, reined-in context. Like a novelist turned architect, Martha seems to design characters in the form of buildings.

What was your first professional work experience? How did you begin teaching?

My first architectural work experience was summer vacations working at Chassay and Last on Ice Wharf, an apartment building by the canal near Kings Cross. Despite the pressures of working on a job under construction, it was an extremely pleasant work environment; the partner Tchaik Chassay would cook lunch and organise tennis matches for the staff.

It was a fun challenge trying to convince the students that the literature could be relevant to architecture During my practical training year out, I worked at Eric Moss's studio in Culver City. When I returned to LA in 2003, Eric got me onto the faculty of SCI-Arc, where he was director. There were plenty of architects around at the school; what they needed was someone to teach Humanities, and they saw I had a background in literature. It was a fun challenge trying to convince the students that the literature could be relevant to architecture – but I was a lone voice in a culture where the prevailing interest was in digital technology and software.

I was working at Zaha Hadid Architects in London, and though it was a good job with interesting projects, the prospects for advancement felt compromised by the number of senior staff who had been there for many years. There was no specific prompt, just a sense that if I didn't go for it then, then I never would. It has worked out well, but felt a little like jumping off a cliff at the time.

Side return extension in North London. Image courtesy of the architect.

How did your previous work experience inform your practice? Specifically, what did you take away from your time at FOGA (Frank O. Gehry Associates) in terms of organizational structure, studio collaboration, etc.?

I was impressed at Gehry's office at the high level of organisation and efficiency – which of course allows more time for creativity. As unglamorous as it sounds, I am obsessed with organisation in my office; the less time you spend looking for things or reinventing the wheel in terms of CAD standards etc., the more time you have for design – and for a life outside work. I also appreciated the complete lack of pretention at FOGA, and of course the extraordinary lengths that were gone to get it right. On a more personal level, my time there was a great confidence boost; it feels good to find you are able to hold your own among architects of that caliber. Generally, working for 7.5 years in the States, I enjoyed the directness and laid-backness you get working among Americans.

Martha Read Architects' entry for the Guggenheim Helsinki competition, view from the water. Image courtesy of the architect.

Guggenheim Helsinki, site plan. Image courtesy of the architect.

How would describe the receptivity of the U.K. to non-traditional design proposals? Can you talk about the process behind the Richmond: Retreat Road project?

The house was in the grounds of Old Friars, a 17th century Grade 2 listed house in a conservation area in the very conservative Royal Borough of Richmond upon Thames just outside London. Quite the opposite of Los Angeles. Its previous owner was the late Sir Richard Attenborough who had built a cinema building to the rear of the garden, which we planned to replace with a new build house for staff and guests. I like to think of architectural design in terms of tailoring the level of distraction to the requirements of the site. In this case it was important that the building had a discreet as possible presence on the garden side, without giving a sense of overlooking. On the other side, I felt something more striking – though discreet and using traditional materials – was appropriate to animate the existing streetscape, a mixture of garages and houses of various sizes and dates. However not everyone agreed and we were asked to match the window openings and traditional roof forms of the neighboring buildings, and so revised our design accordingly – while trying to keep some interesting brick patterning.

How did you come up with the design for the Porto Montenegro competition entry? How much do you rely on physical, as opposed to digital, modeling in your design process?

Porto Montenegro is a new marina in the Bay of Kotor in the Adriatic. I have always disliked marinas – they are like vast carparks on the water – and much of the new architecture in the town was fairly generic. And so I felt a high level of distraction was needed, and in this case it was part of the brief. The town is in an old naval base, and some of the artifacts remain from its military past, for example a huge crane and Yugoslavian submarine hangar. I wanted something feminine to balance this out and thought of the national dolls I used to collect as a child. I also visited a local church whose walls were covered in ex-votos – small metal hearts, marinas – they are like vast carparks on the waterlegs etc., offered in prayer or gratitude for protection or a cure. So I came to the idea of the building as an abstracted dancing doll serving as an ex-voto for the spirit of Porto Montenegro. We do like to make physical models, but always as messy design tools rather than finished products.

Concept design for a villa in Nairobi. Image courtesy of the architect.

You currently have two employees and are working on four projects in London. What is your vision for the firm? What kind of projects would you like to take on, and how do you plan on attracting new clients?

I'm enjoying the firm the size it is; it allows me to be involved in all projects to the extent I want to, which I imagine would be harder with a larger office. At one point I had three employees and found they were designing while I was dealing with faulty printers and doing spreadsheets, so I try to avoid that. I don't really have a grand plan for the future – perhaps I should! – I prefer to see what comes my way. If the opportunity were to arise to grow to the size where I could support an office manager, that would be good. Perhaps I would want a partner too at that stage. I enjoy residential projects – I have been lucky to have clients who I like and respect – but I am interested in branching out, and am currently helping reconfigure a café and bakery – part of a chain so I hope there will be more. Most London projects are fairly constricted, and while it is good to be close to the sites, more work abroad would be great. I developed a concept design for a villa in Nairobi, where we enjoyed a complete lack of planning restrictions from an aesthetic point of view. LA always appealed to me for similar reasons. We entered the Guggenheim Helsinki competition in the summer – I loved engaging with such a rich program with complete freedom of expression. It would be great to work on a public or large-scale housing, and help out with the housing shortage in the UK. I would like to cultivate variety in the types of projects we do. So far I have met some clients through private recommendations, others through architects who are getting too busy and pass on projects. I hope that will continue.